It seems to be the accepted view among historians who deal with Egypt under Roman rule to regard the two first centuries after the Roman conquest as a period of prosperity and happiness in Egypt, and the last three before the Arab invasion as one of absolute ruin and misery, though there are differences of opinion as to the point when the decline began and the causes to which it is to be ascribed. There is, however, considerable ground for believing that the condition of the country steadily deteriorated from the very beginning of Roman rule, and that this deterioration was the inevitable result of the mistakes made in the scheme of organisation adopted by Augustus.

So far as extant writings go, Gaius is the first to assert that Rome was owner of the soil in the provinces. It seems, however, to be the general belief that the doctrine of state-ownership was invented long before the Empire. Mommsen attributed it to Gaius Gracchus, basing his view upon the Gracchan censoria locatio in Asia. Klingmüller, who has more recently examined the evidence, believes that the theory is even older; that in fact Rome had from the earliest times claimed ownership of conquered territory. Rostovtzeff, rejecting Klingmüller's arguments, asserts that Rome adopted the theory from the Hellenistic practices found embodied in the Hieronic law which Rome used for the collection of tribute in Sicily.

The cursive writing of Latin is known mainly from papyri and from the wax tablets of Pompeii and Dacia (A.D. 131-167), but there is another class which has been overlooked, and this belongs mainly to a period intermediate between the Pompeian and Dacian examples, but is more closely akin to the Pompeian script. The Gaulish potters of Terra Sigillata (the so-called Samian ware) were occasionally addicted, especially in the Hadrianic period, to the practice of writing their names with a stylus in the clay of their moulds before baking them in the kiln. Naturally these signatures are reversed on the vases formed in the moulds, but for the sake of clearness I have in all cases reproduced them as originally written. This writing has sometimes been destroyed or obscured by the addition of the footstand, since the signatures usually occur below the decoration. These reversed signatures were formerly often misunderstood ; in one museum in this country they are described as written in Greek and they have even been regarded as Oriental script. Thus Roach Smith states that a signature (which we now know to be CRICIRO reversed) ‘had been interpreted by Mr. Foster “Daoud made me.”’

In the collection of ancient sculpture at Pawlowsk, near Leningrad, there is a Roman sarcophagus which has never been published (plate I, a-c), though long known to students of ancient sarcophagi. A certain amount of information as to its history is supplied to us from the following sources. Stephani appends to his description of the sarcophagus in Die Antiken-Sammlung zu Pawlowsk, 1872, p. 24, no. 42, a short notice of its previous career. ‘Der Sarkophag ist in Rom im Mausoleum des Augustus, worin bekanntlich. nähere und fernere Verwandte der kaiserlichen Familie bis gegen die Zeit Hadrians beigesetzt wurden (Becker, Handb. der röm. Alterth. Th. I, s. 639), gefunden und gelangte zunächst in die Sammlung Lyde Brown—Cat. L. Br. 1779, sarcofaghi, no. I, “un bellissimo e ben conservato sarcofago, largo quattro piedi e mezzo, ornato con sei maschere di Fauni e Satiri e con festoni e putti di ottimo gusto; fu trovato nel Mausoleo d'Augusto.”’ On the negative side we can trace the history of the sarcophagus still further.

When Vespasian sought to give new vitality to the decadent aristocracy of Rome by admitting the local gentry of the Italian towns to the senate, he was drawing upon a class which was destined to play an important part in the government and defence of the Empire. The municipal nobility, first of Italy and later of the provinces, not only managed the affairs of all the smaller communities, but also came to fill most positions of authority, both military and civil, in the imperial administration. To understand the Empire, therefore, we must know something of this aristocracy, and must study it in that local setting which our literary authorities despise. Here Pompeii affords valuable evidence, through the comparative abundance of the material presented, and through the tragic definiteness of its chronological lower limit. It is true that this evidence, for all its copiousness, is defective, since a large part of Pompeii remains unexcavated; and our lists of magistrates and of candidates for office are compiled from casual finds, not from official sources, so that negative evidence cannot safely be used. It is true also that Pompeii, owing to its unusually favourable economic conditions, is less representative of other Italian municipia than could be wished. Within these limits, however, a study of its ruling Ordo should throw some light upon the character of these bodies in and even beyond Italy.

The commentary on the notable inscription of Hadrian's time from Ishekli (J.R.S. xvi, 1926, p. 74, no. 201) does not, it would seem, give adequate consideration to the fact that under the Empire permanent military garrisons were regularly stationed even in proconsular provinces administered by the Senate, although such garrisons consisted of no more than one or several auxiliary regiments. A few instances that I happen to have at hand may be mentioned here by way of illustration.

Readers of the Journal will no doubt welcome a reproduction of the highly interesting and important edicts of Augustus which came to light some six years ago in the course of the Italian excavations at Cyrene and have now been published by G. Oliverio in the rather inaccessible Notiziario Archeologico, fasc. iv, 1927, pp. 13–67. As I have busied myself with the interpretation of the documents to the extent of delivering an address on them to the Roman Society on October 25th, I repeat here the substance of what I then said, with some omissions and some additions. The purpose of my address was, not to furnish a complete commentary on the texts, but to attempt an estimate of their historical significance. In consenting to repeat it, I am well aware that pitfalls beset pioneers and that differences of view are not only possible, particularly in regard to the last edict of the series, but will no doubt find expression in the near future. But it is only by the interplay of various minds that the truth can be reached.

It may be of interest to describe examples of small round buildings found in exploring Roman forts in this country, adding for comparison notes on others recorded in connexion with forts on the German Limes ; for in many cases the purpose of these buildings has been misunderstood, and in some cases the misunderstanding appears still to persist. The buildings in question are generally about 15-20 feet in internal diameter, and they either stand close beside the bath-buildings of the fort to which they belong, or form part of these buildings. In the last century, when bath-buildings of this kind were habitually described- as ‘villas’ and mistaken for official residences, the circular structures were often described as temples or shrines. But this theory has never been borne out by the discovery of altars, inscriptions, votive objects, or anything whatever pointing to a religious function ; and, on the other hand, even apart from the now universally recognised purpose of the bath-houses with which they are associated, finds have been made in the round buildings themselves pointing towards their use as baths.

The following monument was seen in the course of a visit to the upper Tembris Valley by W. M. Calder and C. W. M. Cox in July 1924. The MS. of this paper was completed in March 1926; in the revision of the proof-sheets we have been privileged to use the notes, impressions, and photographs made by C. W. M. Cox and A. Cameron in the course of an exhaustive survey of the Tembris Valley monuments in May 1926. The notes on no. 230 have been written by Calder.

In cube tombs the mouldings which exhibit the greatest variation are the ‘lip’ and the ‘bell.’ It has been said above (J.R.S. XV, p. 22) that the ‘bell’ is the dynamic element of the upper part of the decorated façade.

Generally the depth of the ‘bell’ is equal to its height. When the former exceeds the latter, the crowning member naturally recedes, and the whole appearance of the upper decoration is less heavy. In the contrary case it becomes heavier. The large band is almost always somewhat high and is proportional to the height of the ‘bell.’

The Thracian tribe Bessoi are spoken of in Herodotus (vii, III, 22) as if they were a religious sect or subdivision of the larger Thracian trib e of Satrai—Βησσοί δὲ τῶν Σατρέων εἰσὶ οἱ προφητεύοντες τοῦ ἱροῦ (on Pangaion). Whether they were of wider distribution in the fifth-century B.C. is not known, but in the time of Livy and Pliny they seem to have been considered a large tribe. According to Pliny they lived on the left bank of the Strymon, which naturally includes their Pangaean settlement, while Strabo places them slightly further inland on Haimos—τὸ πλέον τοῦ ὄρους νέμονται τοῦ Αἵμου—and even on its northern slopes along the upper waters of the Hebros. We are thus able to identify them as being in their original home until the early years of our era. They were subdued by M. Lucullus in 72 B.C., and later by C. Octavius in 60 B.C. In 29-28 B.C. M. Licinius Crassus handed their sanctuary to the care of the Romanophil Odrysai.

Two attitudes, broadly speaking, are possible to the problem of dating the Notitia Dignitatum. (1) We may suppose that the original document from which our text is derived was from first to last an official copy kept in the principal chancellery of the Western Empire at Ravenna, that the text suffered no material alteration in its subsequent history, and that, in consequence, items, such as late military formations whose period can be fixed, may safely be used to date the picture of the Empire presented by the document as a whole. Or (2) we may regard the original as a copy (perhaps an early one) which had passed into private hands and had suffered interpolation of items of later date.

In a paper which appeared under the above heading in Vol. xvi of the Journal mention was made (p. 7, footnote 2) of a previous ‘publication’ of the bronze leg from Milsington by Sir Walter Scott. At the time of writing I had been unable to trace the passage in which he referred to the matter. I am now in a position to quote it. It occurs in a letter addressed to Lord Montague on 22nd February, 1820.